The family of Vladimir Putin’s fiercest critic Alexei Navalny has demanded his body be handed over to them after he disappeared from the morgue where authorities said he was being held.
His mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, traveled with her lawyer to Salekhard, a town near the Arctic penal colony where the Russian opposition leader was imprisoned and where he died on Friday.
Navalny’s spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh confirmed his death yesterday, citing an official document given to his mother that said he died at 2:17 p.m. local time on Friday. The circumstances of Navalny’s death remain unclear. Prison officials claim the 47-year-old man “fell ill” after a walk and “lost consciousness” before dying.
Yarmysh said a prison colony worker told them that Navalny’s body was taken to a morgue in Salekhard. But according to Yarmysh, when his mother and her lawyer visited the morgue, it was closed. When the lawyer called the morgue, they were told that Navalny’s body was not there.
Alexei Navalny’s family has demanded his body be handed over to them after he disappeared from the morgue where authorities say he was being held. In the photo: Alexey Navalny, who died on Friday.
Navalny’s spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh confirmed his death yesterday, citing an official document given to his mother that said he died at 2:17 p.m. local time on Friday. In the photo: A man who wanted to leave flowers for Alexei Navalny detained by the police
“We demand that Alexei Navalny’s body be handed over to his family immediately,” Yarmysh wrote on X. In a later update, he stated that Russian investigators said Navalny’s body will not be returned to them until the investigation is complete.
In an interview with the BBC, he claimed that Navalny was murdered and that his body was being held so that Russian authorities could cover the “footprints.” But yesterday on
Just hours after Navalny’s death, his wife, Yulia Navalnaya, with whom he shares two children, bravely spoke out to condemn Putin and vowed that he and his cronies will “answer” for her husband’s death.
Mrs Navalnaya, 47, told world leaders at the Munich Security Conference in Germany on Friday night: “You will take responsibility for what you did to our country, to my family and to my husband.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said at the conference: “After the murder of Alexei Navalny, it is absurd to perceive Putin as the supposedly legitimate head of the Russian state. He is a bully. US President Joe Biden urged the world to “make no mistake” about who is to blame for Navalny’s death.
Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron yesterday vowed that Britain will take action and urged other countries to do the same.
He said: “I am clear that we will take action.”
Just hours after Navalny’s death, his wife, Yulia Navalnaya (pictured), with whom he shares two children, bravely spoke out to condemn Putin and vowed that he and his cronies will “answer” for her husband’s death.
The Foreign Ministry said on Friday it would summon a Russian embassy official to make clear that it held Russian authorities “fully responsible.” The Kremlin has denied responsibility and yesterday said it was unacceptable for Britain to interfere in its internal affairs.
More than 100 people were detained in Russia on the day of Navalny’s death while laying flowers in memory, and authorities removed the tributes overnight. As of last night, more than 300 people in 32 Russian cities have been detained at events commemorating Navalny, human rights group OVD-Info said.
Navalny was attacked by Russian FSB agents with the Novichok nerve agent on a flight to Moscow in 2020. He was rushed to a German hospital where doctors saved his life, but he was arrested when he returned to Russia in January 2021.
Since then he has been held in the brutal penal colony, where he spent 308 days in solitary confinement and recently had his sentence increased to 19 years for “extremism.”